Dell™ Update Packages for Microsoft® Windows® Operating Systems User’s Guide
Notes and Cautions NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your computer. CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates potential damage to hardware or loss of data if instructions are not followed. ____________________ Information in this document is subject to change without notice. © 2009 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of these materials in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden.
Contents 1 Getting Started With Dell Update Packages . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Server Update Utility and DUPs . Update Options . Supported Operating Systems . Before You Begin . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 How to Obtain DUPs from the Dell Support Website . . . . . . . . . Installation Order of DUPs . . . .
2 Using Dell Update Packages . Before You Begin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 . . . . . . . . . . . 19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Verifying the Digital Signature Compatibility Concerns Meeting System Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . 21 . . . . . . . . . . 21 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Effects of Applying the Updates on a Running System . . . . . . . . . . .
3 Update and Rollback in Unified Server Configurator - Lifecycle Controller Enabled . . . . . . . . . . Update in USC - LCE . . . . . . . 29 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Rollback in USC - LCE 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Command Line Interface Reference Using the CLI . . . . . 31 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 CLI Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Exit Codes for CLI Sample Script 33 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 . . .
B Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and BitLocker Support . . . . . . . . . . Index 6 . . . . . . . 55 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Getting Started With Dell Update Packages 1 Overview Dell™ Update Packages (DUPs) allow administrators to update a wide range of system components simultaneously and apply scripts to similar sets of Dell systems to bring system software components up to the same version levels.
Similarly, updating only the miniport driver of a storage controller may also create problems. The Update Packages support installation of a single driver for a device as well as multiple drivers, in a single package. Each DUP contains the execution logic to verify that the update will work on your system.
Server Update Utility and DUPs Dell OpenManage Server Update Utility (SUU) is a DVD–based application that is used to identify and apply the latest updates to your system. It is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and a Command Line Interface (CLI) based application. SUU compares the versions of components currently installed on your system with the update components packaged on the Dell Server Updates DVD and then displays a comparison report of the versions and provides the option of updating the components.
Figure 1-1 helps you choose between SUU and DUPs when performing updates: Figure 1-1. Choosing Between SUU and DUPs Supported Operating Systems For a complete list of supported systems and operating systems, see the Dell Systems Software Support Matrix available on the Dell Support website at support.dell.com/manuals.
5 Select your operating system, language, category, and the update importance. A list of applicable updates are displayed. 6 Click Download Now. 7 You can also download a different file format from the column labeled File Title. Select a file format for your DUP and single-click its filename. If you want to download more than one file type, you must do it one at a time. 8 To complete downloading the file, follow the instructions on the screen.
3 Create a directory structure for performing the updates (for example, create a directory for each system type). 4 Determine a methodology for performing the updates. • Single update method: Run DUPs from the GUI in the interactive mode to perform the update. • Script method: Use this method if you have a requirement for running one or more updates from a script on a single system. See the sample scripts in "Command Line Interface Reference.
Important Tips to Remember for Using DUPs • Prepare repair disks before you perform any updates. • Download the currently installed version of drivers, BIOS, and firmware so that you have a backup plan in case any issues arise. • When you are upgrading any RAID controller software drivers, the enhanced Storage Management Service may need to be upgraded. Check the Dell OpenManage Legacy Compatibility Guide before proceeding. See "Other Documents You May Need" for more information.
Non–Interactive Mode When a fresh install is applicable, executing DUPs with the /s switch installs the driver. For example, packagename.exe /s and packagename.exe /s /r does a fresh install of driver DUPs. See "CLI Options" for more information on the command syntax. NOTE: Not all driver DUPs support fresh install. See the Dell Update Packages for Microsoft Windows Operating Systems readme file for the list of drivers that do not support fresh install.
Other Documents You May Need In addition to this guide, you can find the following guides on the Dell Support website at support.dell.com/manuals. To access these documents, go to support.dell.com/manuals and select your product or use the direct link on the Dell Systems Management Tools and Documentation DVD. • The Dell OpenManage Legacy Compatibility Guide summarizes support information for all legacy Dell systems.
• The Dell OpenManage IT Assistant User’s Guide has information about installing, configuring, and using IT Assistant. Dell OpenManage IT Assistant allows you to load DUPs and System Update Sets into a central repository, then compare the packages to the versions of the software currently running on your enterprise systems. You can then decide whether to update systems that are not in compliance, either immediately or according to a schedule you define.
Using Dell Update Packages 2 Before You Begin This section is designed to help you get the most out of Dell™ Update Packages (DUPs). Updating the system software on your Dell systems should be a key element of your company's overall change management policies and procedures. Maintaining the system software on your Dell systems helps ensure smooth operation.
Develop Your System Update Plan You may want to update your system for many reasons, as mentioned in the preceding section. This update requirement may be planned or unplanned. Planned updates occur as a part of your regular cycle of maintaining your systems with up-to-date BIOS, firmware, and drivers. Most IT organizations establish a regular schedule for performing the updates that are integrated with the planned maintenance functions.
After you locate your Update Package, read the summary information to determine whether or not you should download the update and apply it to your system. You can run the Update Package on the target system and read the summary information displayed in the Update Package's interactive window. This information is provided to help you determine whether the update is appropriate for your system and your specific environment.
5 Select the signature from the signature list, and click Details. NOTE: The signature is not verified until you click Details. The Digital Signature Details window appears. 6 Read the digital signature information to verify that the digital signature is OK. 7 Click OK to close the window. Compatibility Concerns Meeting System Prerequisites DUPs are designed to confirm that all prerequisites are satisfied before applying the update to your system.
Updating Non-English Operating Systems You can use DUPs on non-English operating systems; however, DUPs are not provided in other languages at this time. Therefore, the summary information and error messages appear in English only. Support for additional languages may be provided in a future release. Effects of Applying the Updates on a Running System System Reboot Required Certain DUPs, such as those that update the system BIOS, require a reboot for the new software to take effect.
Delivering DUPs to Your Systems Using Software Distribution Applications With Update Packages Most IT organizations use internally developed or purchased software distribution applications to remotely install and update software. Update Packages have been designed to operate with any such tool, provided that the tool can remotely deliver and execute a Microsoft® Windows® application and supply that application with command line arguments.
Stand-alone Systems and Firewalls For systems that are not connected to the internet, download the required DUPs from support.dell.com using a system that has access to the Internet, such as a desktop or portable computer. You can make DUPs available to your system by copying them onto removable media that your system supports (such as CD, USB devices, tape, and so on). Confirming the Update To ensure that DUPs were applied to your system, review the log files that were generated during execution.
To accomplish this update, you perform the following general steps: 1 Log on to your account on support.dell.com from your office desktop or portable system. Because you have an account on support.dell.com, the Dell hardware service tag of your server is automatically displayed. 2 Select Drivers and Downloads. 3 Select your model, product family, and product line. 4 Locate PERC 6/E, which matches the controller type for your system.
installed on it, you plan to upgrade the operating system before installing the new financial application. You also plan to install the most current BIOS, firmware, and drivers offered by Dell, as well as install the Dell OpenManage™ Server Administrator systems management software.
of the file, you also include the following line to check the results of the execution: /l=c:\temp\6950_upgrade.log 9 Analyze the log file, verify that the packages installed successfully, and note that the system has rebooted. 10 Install Server Administrator. At this point, the Dell system is running the most current operating system and the system BIOS, system firmware, RAID controller's firmware, and drivers are up–to–date. You are now ready to install the financial application for your division.
5 Use the software distribution tool to create an update task that delivers the BIOS DUP to all the systems in the network. The update task is simply a batch command that invokes the BIOS DUP and uses the CLI /r /s options to ensure that the system is rebooted when it is necessary. This BIOS DUP runs only on the specified Dell systems; therefore, you can distribute it to all the systems regardless of the system model type. The DUP does not affect other systems.
Using Dell Update Packages
Update and Rollback in Unified Server Configurator - Lifecycle Controller Enabled 3 Dell Unified Server Configurator - Lifecycle Controller Enabled (USC LCE) is an embedded configuration utility that enables systems and storage management tasks from an embedded environment throughout the system’s life cycle. Residing on an embedded flash memory card, USC - LCE is similar to a BIOS utility in that it can be started during the boot sequence and can function independently of an installed operating system.
NOTE: See the Dell Unified Server Configurator User Guide available on the Dell Support website at support.dell.com/manuals for more information on updating the platform. After you select the updates you want to apply, USC - LCE downloads and applies the updates. If you decide to update any device in USC - LCE, the update package of the corresponding device is downloaded. After successfully downloading, verifying, and extracting the DUPs, the corresponding devices are updated.
4 Command Line Interface Reference Using the CLI This section provides information for using the command line interface (CLI) for Dell™ Update Packages (DUPs). CLI Options You can display information about CLI options by typing the DUP name and either /? or /h at a command line prompt. For example, type the following command to get a help screen about the CLI options: PE2850-BIOS-WIN-A02.exe /? Table 4-1 provides a list of the CLI options, a description of each option, and the command syntax.
Table 4-1. CLI Options: Usage (continued) CLI Option CLI Task Description Command Syntax /e= Extracts all files contained in the DUP to the path you specify. If the directory specified in the path does not exist, it is created. packagename.exe /s Extract option /e=c:\update packagename.exe /s /e="c:\update If the path contains spaces, use quotation files" marks around the value. The /s option is required with this option. Options /f, /c, and /r are not valid with this option.
Table 4-1. CLI Options: Usage (continued) CLI Option CLI Task Description Command Syntax /s Executes the update silently without user intervention. When /s is not specified, the DUP is launched in GUI (interactive) mode. packagename.exe /s Silent option /l=c:\pkg.log The /s option is required when using the /e, /f, /c, /l, and /u options. NOTE: Using the /s option causes all output to be written to log files.
Table 4-2. Exit Codes (continued) Value Message Name Description 3 DEP_SOFT_ERROR Some possible explanations are: • You attempted to update to the same version of the software. • You tried to downgrade to a previous version of the software. To avoid receiving this error, provide the /f option. 4 DEP_HARD_ERROR The required prerequisite software was not found on your system.
Sample Script The following example shows how you can use scripts to run DUPs. The Update.bat script is an example of updating the BIOS and ESM firmware on a Dell system. The execution results are placed in a log file named PE2600.log. Text that represents the exit codes from the execution of each package is also placed in the file. You may want to handle some of the exit codes differently in the scripts you write. This script assumes that DUPs have already been downloaded to a folder on the target system.
Command Line Interface Reference
5 Troubleshooting Messages Table 5-1 provides descriptions and solutions to messages that you may receive when running Dell™ Update Packages (DUPs). NOTE: For the latest information on known issues, see the readme.txt file on the Dell Support website at support.dell.com/manuals. Table 5-1. Update Packages: Message Information Message Description/Solution This Update Package is not compatible with your system. Your system: Select a compatible DUP, and try the update again.
Table 5-1. Update Packages: Message Information (continued) Message Description/Solution Your system does not have the minimum operating system version or service pack required for this Update Package. The DUP you selected cannot be installed because the minimum operating system version or service pack requirements were not met. Install the appropriate version, and try the update again. Or, use an alternate update method on support.dell.com.
Table 5-1. Update Packages: Message Information (continued) Message Description/Solution This message confirms the version of the The version of this Update Package is newer currently installed software before the update is performed. than the currently installed version. Software application name: Package version: Installed version: The version of this Update Package is older than the currently installed version.
Table 5-1. Update Packages: Message Information (continued) Message Description/Solution Log in with Administrator privileges, and try Administrator privileges are required the update again. to perform this update. You must reboot the system for the update to take effect. If you shut down or power off the system after performing an update, you will lose the update. An Update Package is already running. Wait until it is complete before proceeding with another update. You can run only one DUP at a time.
Package Log Use the Package log to view and analyze various events and errors that may have occurred during the package installation. The Package log file resides in the following default location: C:\dell\updatepackage\log\packagename.txt where C: is your system drive and packagename is the name of the DUP that you installed. This log is encoded in Unicode, which supports localized systems.
Support Log Use the Support log to view and analyze execution details that have occurred during the package installation. Contents of this log are useful when communicating with Dell™ support representatives during issue diagnosis. This log includes package XML details for the specific device updated. The Support log file resides in the following default location: C:\dell\updatepackage\log\support\packagename.log where C: is your system drive and packagename is the name of the DUP that you installed.
Installed version: A041 << PACKAGE LOG >>The version of this Update Package is newer than the currently installed version. Software application name: BIOS Package version: A06 Installed version: A04 << PACKAGE LOG >>Executing update... Execution command: biosie.exe -u update.
Windows Operating System Event Log Messages are logged to the Windows System Event Log (SEL) if the update is attempted. You can use the Windows Event Viewer to view and manage Windows events.
Troubleshooting
Frequently Asked Questions 6 Question: Must I reboot my system after applying every Dell™ Update Package (DUP)? Answer: DUPs that are running in the interactive mode determine if it is necessary to reboot your system. If so, you are prompted to reboot. In the silent unattended mode, the exit code is set to 2, which indicates that a system restart is required.
Question: I'm using a software distribution tool to deploy my applications or operating system updates to my remote servers. Can I use DUPs with this tool to remotely update my servers? Answer: DUPs are designed to work with most software distribution tools. See the documentation for your tool for more information.
Question: I'd like to apply several updates to my system at once. Can I do this with DUPs? Do I need to be concerned about the order in which I apply the updates? Answer: Yes, you can apply multiple updates to your system at the same time. See the "Scenario Two — Retasking a System" section for more information. The installation order is very important. See Table 1-1 for information about the update order. Question: If I rename Windows DUPs, will they still function correctly? Answer: Yes.
Question: Why does my system only execute one of the CLI options that I entered in a command string? Answer: Only certain CLI options can be used simultaneously. When invalid combinations of CLI options are entered in a single command string, only the option with the highest priority is executed. See Table 4-1 for details on which commands can be used together.
A Microsoft Windows Server 2008 User Account Control In previous versions of Windows®, user accounts were often members of the local Administrators group and had access to administrator privileges. Members of the local Administrators group could install, update, and run software since an Administrator account has system-wide access. When a user was added to the local Administrators group, that user was automatically granted every Windows privilege.
UAC prompts users in the Domain Administrators group (except the Administrator account) to click Continue, if they need to elevate privileges, or to click Cancel when performing functions that may entail a security risk. With UAC, users have to upgrade to an Administrator account before running DUPs. NOTE: Since the user experience is configurable with the Security Policy Manager snap-in (secpol.msc) and with Group Policy, there are multiple UAC user experiences.
• Disabling UAC for all users on remote machines (not a recommended option). • Not upgrading to Administrator account on remote machines. NOTE: Only two accounts (the Local Administrator Account and the Local System Account) are not protected by UAC. All other users including accounts with local administrator rights or domain administrator rights have UAC enabled by default. Even though UAC can be disabled by updating the local or domain security policy, it is not recommended.
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 User Account Control
B Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and BitLocker Support A TPM is a secure microcontroller with cryptographic capabilities designed to provide basic security-related functions involving encryption keys. It is installed on the motherboard of your system, and communicates with the rest of the system using a hardware bus. You can establish ownership of your system and its TPM through BIOS setup commands.
BitLocker is designed for systems that have a compatible TPM microchip and BIOS. A compatible TPM is defined as a version 1.2 TPM. A compatible BIOS supports the TPM and the Static Root of Trust Measurement. BitLocker seals the master encryption key in the TPM and only allows the key to be released when code measurements have not changed from a previous secure boot. It forces you to provide a recovery key to continue boot if any measurements have changed.
Index B D BIOS update for 200 systems usage scenario, 26 default log file location, 11, 20 BitLocker, 55 C delivering Update Packages to your systems, 22 Dell File Watch update notification service, 18, 26 Catalog.
installation, 8 Server Administrator documentation, 11, 15 M specifying order of multiple updates, 21 message logs for Update Packages, 40 strategy for running Update Packages, 12 multiple drivers, 8 Support log, 42 log file example, 42 O obtaining Update Packages, 10 system reboot required after installing some Update Packages, 21 T P Package log, 41 default location, 41 log file example, 41 Platform Configuration Registers, 55 terminal mode commands, 55 troubleshooting Update Packages messages
Update Options, 9 element update, 9 system update, 9 Update Packages acquiring, 18 before you begin, 17, 29 CLI mode, 31 CLI options, 20 CLI reference information, 31 delivering to your systems, 22 executing, 19 how to obtain, 10 information provided about updates, 11 message logs, 40 overview, 7 remote terminal sessions, 22 resolving compatibility concerns, 20 sample script, 35 silent/unattended mode, 23 some require system reboot, 21 stand-alone systems, 23 supported devices, 48 supported installation ord
Index
